


what death leaves behind

by sludgeraptor



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, Unrequited Love, not a happy end. at all, this is literally just me crying about sam and hannah except in fic form
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 21:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5602039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sludgeraptor/pseuds/sludgeraptor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of her wished they would just find the bodies already so she could sleep without imagining Hannah and Beth alone on the mountain, cold and starving, clinging to each other until the frost or the hunger wore them into less than skeletons.<br/>Even then, Sam knew she wouldn't be able to sleep. It was just a fantasy she indulged in. She knew for the rest of her life one question would haunt her: What if I had told her in time?</p>
            </blockquote>





	what death leaves behind

It took a long time for Sam to start really believing Hannah was gone.

She’d wake up and check her phone like always, and even though it had been months, she’d still half expect to see Hannah’s customary morning text, something cheerful along the lines of _good morning bff!! <3 are you free this afternoon?? :0 _

Sam missed waking up to those.

She would crawl out of bed and pull on her clothes and brush her teeth and check herself in the mirror like it was a chore, because she knew she'd probably never hear Hannah’s bubbly exclamation of _“You look_ amazing! _Oh my gosh Sam we_ have _to get a photo!”_ again. Even though the law could count the twins as alive for seven years, if the circumstances around their absence meant death was more likely than not, the death certificates could come much sooner. Sam knew because she'd googled it one late night, chewing on the skin around her thumbnail and trying to hold in hiccupy sobs as she indulged in this kind of self destruction that she never would’ve allowed herself before 3am.

Part of her wished they would just find the bodies already so she could sleep without imagining Hannah and Beth alone on the mountain, cold and starving, clinging to each other until the frost or the hunger wore them into less than skeletons.

Even then, Sam knew she wouldn't be able to sleep. It was just a fantasy she indulged in. She knew for the rest of her life one question would haunt her: _What if I had told her in time?_

***

Sam is sitting with Hannah in the cabin kitchen. Josh is passed out on Hannah’s right, and Chris on Sam’s. They don't look like they're breathing - Sam wonders how long they've been asleep. Between her and Hannah sits the letter that started it all, in Mike’s distinctive scrawl. From upstairs, Sam hears him, Jess, and Emily laugh at something.

“You didn't warn me,” Hannah says. She sounds just like Sam remembers, and it makes Sam’s chest hurt.

“I tried,” Sam says. “I wanted to. I told them to stop.”

The laughing from upstairs gets louder. “Why didn't you tell me, Sam?” Hannah looks at her with pleading eyes, and Sam leans a little across the table, desperate to be closer again, to give a comforting embrace or be her shoulder to cry on.

“I _tried,”_ she insists, voice wavering. “I never wanted them to - you know that I -”

“Maybe you wanted me gone.”

The laughter is deafening now.

“I think you were just jealous of me, Sam. I think you wanted all the attention a grieving best friend gets.”

“No!” Sam stands up, hands shaking as she puts her palms on the counter, trying not to cry - “Hannah, I was in love with you, I could never let you get hurt, I -”

“But you did. You did let me get hurt, Sam.” Hannah is still staring forward as though Sam was sitting. Sam tries to object, but the laughing swallows up the sound.

Hannah shivers.

“It's so _cold,_ Sam.”

Sam wakes up in a sweat.

***

Although she had found it hard to speak to the pranksters at first, it got easier with time. For the first few weeks every talk with them ended with the offender crying or nearly crying and apologising until it seemed like they almost couldn't speak. But as time went on and the twins stopped being the topic that consumed all of their conversations, they stopped begging for forgiveness.

Sam doesn’t mind that they have. She's made her peace with them as best she can.

She hasn't heard an apology from any of them in weeks when Jess calls her at 2am. It's Wednesday, so Sam is confused when she wakes up to the sound of her phone in the middle of the night, but she picks up anyway.

“‘Ey,” Jess slurs, voice light.

“Are you drunk?”

“A li’l,” Jess giggles. “I thought - thought I should call you. ‘Cuz I was -” (she hiccups, giggles again) “- thinkin’ ‘bout stuff.”

“Stuff?”

  
“Yeah. Stuff.” Sam hears Jess shift on the other end, and her breathing sounds ragged, like she’s been crying. “I been - I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout - Hannah and Beth.”

Sam doesn’t say anything. Her entire body feels cold.

“Spe-cif-i-cal-ly,” Jess says, enunciating each syllable carefully, “how ‘s all my fault they’re dead.”

“You don’t know they’re dead,” Sam says, but it comes out limp and emotionless, a weak attempt at easing both of their minds. “You can’t - none of us know that.”

“Sam,” Jess says.  She sounds almost condescending. “Come on.”

Sam’s throat feels like a desert.

“Soooo...I was thinking about them. And I thought - hey, since I was the one who thought of - of that fucking prank - I’m the one who killed ‘em, right? I came up with it. I -” Her breath hitches, and the line crackles as she seems to choke back a sob. “Sam, I wanted to apologise - I know I already did, but those times I - I wasn’ bein’ really _honest._ ”

There’s a long pause.

“How weren’t you being honest?” Sam finally manages.

“If I was bein’ honest,” Jess states, decisive, “I woulda apologised for murderin’ your best friend.”

When Sam says nothing, Jess continues. “I know ‘s a lot. I know. I know I - I thought a lot - about makin’ this call. When I was sober. But I knew I couldn’t. ‘Cuz I think I knew she wasn’ _just_ your best friend, was she?”

“What’s the point of this?” Sam croaks, and she’s trying to make out the picture of her and Hannah she keeps on her bedside table, but she’s blinded by her tears and the dark and all she wants is to see Hannah’s picture again, to be able to pretend that they can take another one like it soon -

“I get it,” Jess says. “I get it.” Her voice slurs together so it sounds like ‘ _igeddit’_ , and she giggles again, but this time it sounds less carefree and more unsettling. “I use’ta - I thought about Em th’ same way. I guess...in some fucked up way...what I did to Han was just me tryin’ to break Em and Mike up - ‘cuz I’m _selfish,_ Sam, I’m so goddamn selfish -” She pauses to laugh again, but Sam can hear sobs between the laughing, and she wants more than anything to hang up.

“You’re not selfish, Jess,” is what she says instead.

“I am. I’m _so_ selfish. You wanna know why?”

“Why?”

“I called you just to apologise hopin’ you would tell me that. I wan’ed you to tell me I’m not a bad person. But I am, Sam. You know the problem with you an’ I? We always wanted what we couldn’t have.”

Sam breathes out shakily.

“Sorry again. ‘ave a good night, Sam.”

Jess hangs up.

***

Sam’s only thought is that she has to be very, very still.

She has to be still or that monster - that _thing_ \- is going to rip her to shreds, and she doesn’t want to die, not yet, not here.

Her whole body is shaking. She’s hiding behind a pillar in the Washington lodge, and she just saw Mike get tossed onto the floor like he was a rag doll and she’d had to stand still while it screamed in her face, oh _God_ she doesn’t want to die -

It’s screeching again, right next to her face, and she can’t help it - she flinches away, she’s so scared.  The monster grabs her by the chin and she yelps _no_ before she even realises she’s doing it, kicking her legs uselessly and grabbing at the arm holding her in the air. Her eyes desperately scan for some sort of escape, but instead fall on the monster’s shoulder.

A tattoo. A butterfly. Sam remembers it well. She’d trace her fingers over it sometimes, compliment Hannah’s taste. Hannah would laugh, thank her, and they’d talk about what tattoo Sam should get. Sam’s fingertips always burned after she did it, and she’d always wonder what longer contact, more intimate contact, would feel like, but she always shoved those thoughts away because Hannah liked Mike and Hannah didn’t like girls and Sam had to learn to live with it. And she did, even though it hurt her. And she learned to be content with their closeness, even if it wasn’t the type she wanted, because Hannah liked it and Sam had wanted Hannah to be happy.

She tries to choke out _Hannah_ as if it’ll register some sort of recognition in the monster and it’ll ( _she’ll_ ) let Sam down, let her live, maybe even talk back, but before she can get the word out it draws its ( _her)_ arm back and shoves it through Sam’s midriff, ripping her guts in half so she chokes up blood and her eyes roll back in her head and she feels overwhelmed by sensation. Sam’s vision goes blurry, and suddenly she can feel everything in her body at once - her heartbeat slowing down, her blood dripping down her chin and throat and from her stomach to her feet, leaving hot wet trails, her hair sticking to her head from the sweat, and most of all the feeling of total emptiness that comes when it ( _Hannah_ ) rips the claws out of her again.

Sam almost wants to laugh when she falls to the floor, barely alive, because all she can think is about how all she’d wanted was to see Hannah again, to be able to touch her again, just to look at her one more time.

She guesses Jess was wrong. Sometimes you got what you wanted.

 

**Author's Note:**

> #justgirlythings: reuniting with your best friend <3


End file.
